news on Twitter now and then, he does not see a day whenplayers turn to social media in lieu of post-round sessionswith reporters. “It’s amazing how fast it’s gone the last fiveyears, but I can’t see it going that way,” he says. “I still thinkthere will always be a need for face-to-face interaction. Icertainly wouldn’t resort to that.”On-site tournament interaction is the next area of growth.

The PGA Tour crushes the LPGA in followers (566,109 to

56,615), but the women’s tour is innovating in ways that have
gotten the attention of the sports world. With an emphasis
on players doing the messaging work in their own voice over
the tour’s official account, the LPGA has an array of well-coordinated initiatives.

For example, the Friday before a tournament, the tour
sends out information to players on the upcoming week’s
sponsor, tournament initiatives and appropriate “hashtags”
that will turn up in Twitter searches. There are “Twitter
takeovers” on Golf Channel telecasts where a player answers
fan questions while sitting in the broadcast booth. The
LPGA has also contracted with the cutting-edge firm Digital
Royalty to enhance content going out on its streams in the
form of “social stunts” and to better coordinate the tricky
week-to-week dynamics of different sponsors with different
social-media views. And, most of all, the LPGA has made
sure that players’ Twitter handles are on pairing sheets and
caddie bibs. It has even painted the searchable hashtags on
tournament turfgrass. Fans can now tweet on-site at LPGA
events and see their comments or images appear on an

The LPGA strategies gelled when Paula Creamer recently
sank a 75-foot eagle putt to win the HSBC Women’s Champions in Singapore. Since video wasn’t yet available online,
three accounts coordinated by the LPGA sent out a sequence
of images featuring Creamer’s epic reaction. By going viral,
the putt aired on national newscasts—which normally would
not have shown an LPGA highlight.

While all of the major golf bodies are on the Twitter
bandwagon, the Masters account’s paltry number of tweets
is conspicuous considering the club’s propensity to break
barriers in certain Internet categories. The club’s Twitter-lite stance will perhaps soften in 2014 and beyond, depending
on how this year’s tournament plays out on social media. But
considering Twitter’s place in the sports pantheon, expect
this year’s Masters to be more talked about on Twitter than
ever before, regardless of how much the event’s official account tweets.

“It’s a great tool,” says Graeme McDowell, another playerwhose image has been enhanced by tweeting, but who lamentedlosing his “Twitter mojo” of late after going through the samephases many players experienced. “It’s a great way to interactwith fans and give them something they don’t normally getfrom the TV screens. It’s just the way the world is going.”And that, in a nutshell, is why Twitter is here to stay. n